Kanchan maalum kadidhezhundh odiyum
Minji nindru miLirum poruppidai
Konji nindru kulavuva dhandriyum
NenjinuuLLum ramaNa niraindhanan

Word meaning
Kanchan = Brahma; maal = Vishnu; kadidhu = quickly; thedu = search; minji = beyond; milLirum = sparkling, bright; konji = cuddle; kulavi = in a friendly manner;

Arunachala stood beyond the reach and search of Brahma and Vishnu. He stands cuddling and snuggling up the effulgent, shining Annamalai for us to see. That RamaNa fills my entire heart.

The first line refers to the puranic story where Brahma and Vishnu tried to find the head and feet of Shiva who stood as a pillar of light but couldn’t. Such a god who was beyond the reach of celestial beings is standing before as Ramana says SV. 

Words ‘konji kulavidhal’ don’t have a proper English equivalent. ‘konjudhal’ is what a mother, her heart brimming with unconditional love and affection, would do with her child and  how the child, completely dependent on her and not knowing anyone else in the world, would reciprocate. It is also the type of interaction between lovers. 

‘kulavu’ or ‘kulaavudhal' refers to the act of being very close and friendly in one’s interaction. Both are relevant examples as Bhagavan composed Aksharamana malai from a woman longing for her beloved. 

And also as a child as evidenced in this incident when, during Karthigai festival, the ashram people brought the ‘vibhuthi’ from Annamalayar on his street visit came to the ashram entrance. Bhagavan said, ‘Why all this? The son is included in the Father’. This is a reference to a verse from Saint Manickavasagar’s Tiruvembavai which was composed in Tiruvannamalai, a poem that is sung during the month of Margazhi (December). The poet says ‘un kayil piLLai unakke adaikalam’ meaning ‘the child in your hand is your own refuge’. 

Many incidents in Bhagavan’s life during his early days when many women devotees came from various places to make sure he was fed well, and on more than one occasion goddess Parvati herself. Below are two incidents that confirm this from Devotees’ experiences, this is from Shantammal’s recollections:

Sometime during this period I had a dream. A resplendent lady with a luminous face was seated by Bhagavan’s side on the sofa, and Bhagavan was adorning her with meticulous care. Another lady, just as beautiful and full of light and splendour, was moving about the ashram, doing all kinds of service. I asked Bhagavan how it was that he was giving so much attention to one and none to the other, but I woke up before I received an answer. When I told my dream to Muruganar, he told me that it was true that an invisible being was always near Bhagavan. She was the Goddess of Salvation and Muruganar had composed several songs about her.

‘When I was living on the hill, a woman who used to bring me food would serve a second plate by my side. When I asked whom it was for, she would answer, “For the Mother”. She had also had a similar vision.’

One day Appu Sastri’s wife came with a big pot of excellent coffee,
but Bhagavan refused to have any.  ‘Don’t you know that I don’t like coffee?’ he asked. She fought back by asking, ‘What am I to do? I had a dream last night in which I saw a very stately lady at the gate of the temple. I knew at once that she was Parvati herself. She told me, “My son is not taking coffee. Please prepare some  good coffee and make him drink.” There you are, Swami. It’s your mother’s orders!’ Bhagavan got indignant. ‘She [Parvati] is always like this, interfering with my ways of living and frustrating my tapas. She did the same when I was living on the hill!’

AruNai vaazhum azhagan amudhan en
KaruNai vaazhum kadavuLan kaathciyaan
Tharuna gnana sadhodhaya sooriyan
PoruNalam tharum pooraNa bodhagan

Word meaning
AruNai = Arunachala; vaazhum = living; azhagan = beautiful person; amudhan = sweet like nectar; karuNai = compassion; kadavuL = god; kaatchi = sight, object seen; tharuNa = youthful; poruL = material things; poorana = full, wholesome; bodhagan = teacher;

Meaning
My Ramana living in Arunachala is sweet like nectar to me. He is the form of compassion and gnana who shines like the sun that never sets. He is god that bestows material wealth and other boons his seekers need.

SV considers Bhagavan as God himself, as he has done throughout this work where he makes no distinction between Arunachaleswara and Bhagavan. Mortals like us, limited by our five senses and our ignorance, have not seen god. The closest we can come to seeing God are great souls like Bhagavan who, for the sake of devotees, take the human form to bestow on us what we need and serve as a staunch guide to help us escape from samsara.

Kanchi Sage, Paramacharya, says this about guru and god:
“Guru is Iswara in human form, but who is, however free from the triple functions of creation, preservation and destruction which pertain only to Iswara. If we have absolute faith in him, the Guru will shower us with all for which we go to God. In fact, God is needed only we cannot find a Guru. Guru bhakti is even higher than and more efficacious than Deiva bhakti. Sri Vedanta Desikar has declared that he does not consider God higher than the Guru. According to a verse, when God is angry, the Guru protects you but when the Guru himself is angry, there is no protector in the world. If we surrender ourselves absolutely without any reservations to the Guru, he will save us from all sorrows and show us the way to salvation. It is due to lack of Guru bhakti that Iswara bhakti is waning in the hearts of men."
SV sees Bhagavan as a youthful guru, taruna gnana sadhodhaya sooriyan meaning ‘youthful wisdom un-setting sun’. This finds a parallel in Adi Shanakra’s Sri Dakshinamurthy Stotra where the lord who is youthful is sitting under a banyan tree teaching his older disciples through silence. On more than one occasion, people have drawn comparisons between Bhagavan and Dakshinamurthy.

Sloka
Mouna Vyakhya prakatitha, para,
Brahma thathwam yuvanam,
Varshishtha anthevasad rishiganai,
Ravrutham brahma nishtai,
Acharyendram kara kalihtha chin,
Mudram ananda roopam,
Swathmaramam mudhitha vadanam,
Dakshinamurthim eede.

Meaning
I praise and salute that Dakshinamrthy,
Who faces the south,
Who explains the true nature of the supreme Brahman,
Through his state of silence,
Who is young in looks,
Who is surrounded by disciples who are old Sages,
Whose minds are fixed on Brahman,
Who is the greatest of teachers,
Who shows the Chinmudhra by his hand,
Who is personification of happiness,
Who is in the state of extreme joy within himself,
And who has a smiling face. 
(from Hindupdia, http://www.hindupedia.com/en/Sri_Dakshinamurthy_Stotram

MaNNu neerum vaLarndhezhu theyuvum
ViNNum kaalum nuzhaindhu viLangidum
ENNum sangayum ellayum indriya
KaNNuk kaavi RamNan en kaadhalan
​
Word meaning
maNN = earth; neer = water; theyu = fire; viNN = sky; kale = wind; eNNum = thought (too); nuzhaindhu = enter; sangai = doubt; ellai = boundary.

Ramana pervades the five elements of earth, water, fire, wind and space (sky). He is beyond all doubts and thoughts, he is dearest to me, he is my love.

Life form is composed of the five elements, and when it ends, the form goes back and dissolves into the elements. What was created on earth goes back to the earth completing the cycle. Bhagavan, who is both form and formless, is all the elements and at the same time transcends them all. Once when a devotee asked about god and his forms, Bhagavan said ‘First find out if you have form’. As we saw earlier, Yogi Ramaiah had darshan of Rama in Bhagavan and also as formlessness. 

To those who surrender to the feet of Bhagavan, he is the Truth untainted by earth-bound ideas such as thoughts and doubts. Because thoughts and doubts occur to the mind-body consciousness, not to the Self. As Bhagavan said once, ‘I am where there are words’. Words stem from thoughts and thoughts from ‘I am the mind-body’ idea. In the pure space beyond these limitations set by ignorance, is Bhagavan, full of love and grace.

SV calls Bhagavan ‘my love’ (kaadhalan means male lover, kaadhali is female lover). It is quite common for poets to think of their beloved gods as their lovers. Bhagavan himself became a love-lorn lady in his akshsramana malai, beseeching her lover, Arunachala to merge with ‘her’ through 108 verses of pure bhakti and longing. Bharathiar, a 19th century poet, in his collection ‘KaNNan Paatu (Krishna song) has imagined Lord Krishna as his lover (both female and male forms), friend, father, mothering, disciple, servant, baby, playmate and sadguru. In another variation, KaNNa becomes KaNNamma, a female version of the lord. By bringing the Absolute on to his own mortal level, the poet takes the liberty to treat his object of admiration and love  as he would a regular mortal in a display of mortal love and affection and other human emotions.

Pancha bhoodhath adangida paavanan
Manjurung gugai maa virupaakshiyir
Panju thangu padhathudan naNNinan
Senjol inba ramNa mai desikan


Word meaning
Pancha bootham = five elements; adangida = not contained by; paavanam = purifier, purify; manju = clouds, mist, snow, dew; gugai = cave; panju = cotton; padhathinan = feet like (cotton); desikan = one who knows the area, direction, guide.


Meaning
Ramana, he is the pure one that couldn’t be contained by the five elements. He reached, on his cotton-soft feet, the cave surrounded by pleasant, dew-laden clouds. Ramana, the one who knows the way, the form of the Truth, causes perfect bliss (in me).


SV describes Bhagavan as ‘the pure one not contained by the elements’. He also touches on a similar sentiment in ‘kummi paattu’ verse 5 and 6 where he expresses Bhagavan’s nature as one that has transcended the limitations set for mere mortals even though He is pervasive in all the elements.  This description finds a parallel in Saint Manickavasagar’s  Sivapuranam, where he extols Shiva as ‘viNN niraindhum maNN niraindhum mikkai …’ where ‘viNN’ is space or sky and ‘maNN’ is literally soil or sand but refers to the earth, ‘mikkaai’ is pervading.  Grant Duff, had a similar experience when he first saw Bhagavan, “There it did not take me long to see that I was in direct contact with one who has passed beyond the boundaries of the senses and was indeed already merged in the Absolute of his true Self”


‘Paavanan’ is someone who purifier, usually of sins. Lord Rama is worshipped as ‘patita pavana’ patita meaning ‘the fallen’ usually refers to those who fallen from their dharma. 


SV presents a beautiful picture of Virupaksha Cave in the morning, with dew-laden pleasant clouds hovering over Arunachala, reminiscent of the Kailasha peak. In fact, ‘manju’ meaning ‘mist’ (pani in Tamil), is one of the names of Parvati, daughter of Parvati Raja (King of Mountains). Bhagavan’s feet are described as ‘soft like cotton’ in this verse. Bhagavan never wore any kind of footwear (sanyasis are allowed to wear wooden sandals while walking), even in the searing heat of the summer months in Tiruvannamalai. He would walk in his usual, slow pace while advising those who walked with him to find a shaded spot. We mentioned how Bhagavan’s feet became soft in an earlier verse in an incident with his school mate Rangan.


‘Senjol’ is split as ‘sen chol’ which expands ro ‘semmayana sol’. ‘semmai’ can mean to improve or perfect (something). Words from Bhagavan (which, devotees say, can be counted on the fingers of one’s hand in a day), have the power to make us perfect. Hence it is called ‘sen chol’. 


‘Desikan’ : while it has become a family name or surname over time, means someone who knows the territory or direction. Kanchi Mahan in Deivathin Kural Part 6 explains in detail the meaning of the word desikan which has its roots in the Sanskrit sound ‘dich’ from which came ‘disha’ meaning direction and desikan meaning one who knows the direction in an area. Since Truth is a land we mortal have no familiarity with, we seek the help of those who have gone there before to guide us, and who better than Bhagavan to lead us from this samsara?

Devanae ramaNa paadham thedinen thevitta gnana
Paavana theedha moana paramboruL uruvinaane
Jeevanum sıvamam ondrai thaekkiye uLathinanae
Saavadhum pirappum illa thathhuva mudivaai nindroi

Word meaning
Devan = Lord, God; Paadham = foot; thedinen = I searched; thevitta = not cloying; (bh)paavanatheedham = beyond conception; monam = stillness/silence; param poruL = Supreme Being;  jeevan = individual soul; sivam = Siva, supreme state; thekkinan (he) stored, gathered; saavu = death; pirappu = birth; mudivu = end;

Meaning 
My precious treasure Ramana! I am always searching for your holy feet, you whose  sweet wisdom-form is not cloying in the least! You who stand (established) beyond all concepts (of the mind), as the form of Supreme Being! You who gathered jiva and siva as one, you stand as the beginning and end of all philosophy that is beyond birth and death!

SV calls Bhagavan ‘selvam’ which is wealth or treasure, because that is the only permanent wealth that is worth hoarding as everything else that is material is transitory, and will not lead us to the purpose of life, which is self realisation. Many devotees visiting Bhagavan when he was in his sthula sarira  have narrated how they would not want to leave his presence, some considering ‘sanyasa’ so they could be with him (to those Bhagavan said ‘to find our what real sanyasa is’). Ramanatha Brahmachari, one of the early settles in Bhagavan’s presence, wrote: 
‘Thiruchizhi naadhanai kandaene thirumbi varaamal nindraene’ meaning I saw the lord Tiruchizhi  (where Bhagavan was born) and stood without returning.

But not everyone could stay for various reasons, and those who left teary-eyed with a heavy heart, when they said how could they leave Bhagavan, were comforted bu Bhagavan’s words like, ‘Look he says he is going some place where I am not!’ Once Bhagavan told Krishnasamy that ‘even this Bhagavan will leave you one day, so hold on to the Bhagavan inside your heart, only that is permanent’.

SV refers to Bhagavan’s form as ‘thevittadha’ meaning that which doesn’t cloy your palate’ meaning that which you can have to your heart’s content, over and over.

‘Paavana (or bhavana) theetha’ (athhetham is extra, over, beyond) is taken to mean that which is beyond conception. Bhagavan himself said ‘I am where there are no words’ indicating the the Self he has asked us to find cannot be grasped by concepts and words or anything coming from mind. ‘Anything the mind comes up with when you ask ‘Who am I’ is not the truth he has advised one devotee. 

He has gathered the individual soul and Sivam in his heart from the minute he had the death experience in his uncle’s house as a young boy, a stage he has never deviated from till he shed his body in 1950. Consequently he transcended the metal cycle of birth and death and stands as the beginning and end of all ‘tatvam’ which can mean philosophy or it can mean ’tat vam asi’ which is a maha vakya of one of the Vedas meaning you are that. 

It also finds mention in aksharamana malai 42:
Thatthuvam theriyaadh athanai utraai
Thatthuvam idhuvenn Arunachala

Meaning
Arunachala! Without knowing the truth ‘You are that’, you helped me attain that state. Shower me with your grace so as to confirm that this is the state I have attained.

Nindridu ninaivu thannai nimidathi neekki nenjai
Andrayan thirumal aayndhitt arindhida vazhagan paadham
Sendrida niruthun soma segara ramaNa murthi
En perun thuyara neekka yegane yoga vazhve

Word meaning
Ninaivu = memory; nimidam = minute; neekki = act of removing; Andru = that day; ayan, mal = Brahma and Vishnu; aayndhittu = searching; soma segaran (Shekaran) = Shiva; thuyar = sorrow.

Meaning
Ramana, Somashekara murthi! You wipe out, in a minute, the mind that’s holding onto desires, and place at the holy feet of Arunachala, which is not seen by Brahma and Vishnu! Please remove my sorrows, Oh Ramana, the one is established in the atma swarupa (form of Self).

Nisargadatta Maharaj says ‘it (the idea of you) is mere a habit built on memory, prompted by desire, you will think yourself to be a person …’ On another occasion, he says, ‘desire is the memory of pleasure and fear is the memory of pain, both make the mind restless.’

It is this cycle of desire and memory that SV is seeking to transcend in this verse. He appeals to Bhagavan to wipe out the desires, remembered and sought, based on past experiences, and lift him (and us) to the holy feet of Arunachala that was beyond the reach of Brahma and Vishnu.  

In the mythical lore, Lord Shiva appeared as a pillar of Light to resolve the argument between Brahma and Vishnu as to who was superior. Shiva said that whoever found his head or feet first will be superior. Vishnu took the form of a boar and drilled through the earth but admitted defeat as he couldn’t find Shiva’s feet. Brahma flew up in the form of a swan, and along the way he saw a flower (thazham poo - screw pine flower) falling from Shiva’s matted locks. He asked the flower to say that he saw Shiva’s head and the flower was proof that he did. On the ground, Brahma l and lied that he found the head and the flower backed up his story. Since the Shiva knew the truth, he cursed both Brahma and the flower saying there will be no temples for the former and that the latter will not be used in any pujas in Shiva temples. Even today, there are virtually no temples for Brahma and ‘thazham poo’ is never used in Shiva temples except in Uttarakosa mangai temple, one of the ancient Shiva temples in the south, that too only onMaha Shivarathiri nights. 

In the first song of Arunachala Stuthi Panchakam, Muruganar refers to this story :

Buddhi agangaaram pula peydha vongu
Madhdhi idhayandhaan marayavanum maalu
Naththa variyadhu nalan gulaya vannaar
Maththi oLir annamalayinadhu meyye

Here Brahma is ego (ahankara, in Tamil, agangaaram) and Vishnu is intellect (buddhi). When the ego and intellect stood bewildered in their failed attempt to reach the truth, the light that shone from the heart space is in their midst is the true meaning of Arunachala.

The great sorrow referred here is our samsara, the cycle of birth and death. The only way to escape this endless cycle is to seek Guru’s help to reach the feet of Arunachala, who offers moksha be mere thought of him. It is said in that to be born in Thiruvarur, to have darshan at Chidambaram, and to die in Kasi (Varanasi) will guarantee moksha but mere thought of Arunachala will bestow mukti. Since Bhagavan Ramana is not different from Arunachala, it is at his feet we will find salvation.